Staff Reports
Ben Smith, the former editor of BuzzFeed News, recently reflected on his decision to publish the unverifiable Steele Dossier, which has been dismissed as illegitimate. The document set off the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Donald Trump, which morphed into the Mueller investigation and the Russian collusion hoax. This wreaked havoc on the last vestiges of the media’s credibility and destroyed the “transparent new internet” versus the “legacy media” conflict that served only to generate traffic.
Ex-BuzzFeed News Editor Says He Would Still Publish the Trump Dossier, But There's a Catch
https://t.co/KtilQlQVFl— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 23, 2023
Smith admits that publishing the dossier did not hurt Trump and only muddied the waters regarding the revelations of his business dealings and his campaign manager’s ties to Russia. This CIA-initiated smear campaign, based on Russian disinformation, attempted to discredit and paint Trump as a traitor. It eventually cost him a second term and was used to plant seeds of distrust and skepticism within the intelligence community.
According to Smith, the dossier would still be published, even though it was biased political propaganda paid for by the Clinton campaign. As an editor, Smith loved the traffic generated by publishing the dossier, but he was uncomfortable with the gratitude expressed by liberal politicians and supporters who were forming their “resistance” movement on social media.
Smith makes light of the FBI’s deep state shenanigans, downplaying the tens of thousands of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two love birds who engaged in an extramarital affair that soiled the impartiality and professionalism that the FBI prides itself on.
In conclusion, those at the Justice Department didn’t like Trump and colluded with the media to carry out an agenda that ultimately failed, and this fake news dossier was at the heart of it. At best, Smith believes that the dossier and other scandalous materials should have been shared as screenshots with added text for context and analysis, so readers could understand the unverified and biased nature of the materials.
